Q&A

Looking to start a life time of investments.

Need quite a bit of help. I'm 23, and looking to set up investments with my partner (23). I'm currently between jobs and she's very stable in hers. We have a cash ISA (which I think sucks) of about 4k, and we put £450 into it every month. For cash we're pretty ok, sitting on around 2-3 months, with very little expenses. I started a company and have a small loan to repay, which is my first objective when getting a job. I've been reading Fool for the past 2 days, and am definitely looking to build a portfolio of investments which we can put money into monthly. They particularly advise Index Trackers as ISA's, so I've been looking into getting one as a core investment. Happy to put £250 into it a month and switch our current ISA in full, but am unsure of the % I should expect on average annually over say a 15-20 year period. I want to achieve 7.5% average annual returns from our entire portfolio, whilst continuing to invest on a monthly basis. The whole cumulative returns thing. I really just need some customised advice on how to get there...from here. I do plan on getting more savvy in properties and equity in time, but would ideally like some stable "core" investments to build off (and show her this is really the way to go!). Sorry for the length, but thanks in advance for any help. Darren.